When Jarrett came to he was laid across a double sofa in his coach’s office, his head resting on his own bag. His coach sat beside him reading a newspaper. Noticing Jarrett stirring he put the paper down, moved over to his table and switched the kettle on. “Fancy a cupper” he asked Jarrett, who was now sitting up rummaging through his bag. “No thanks” Jarrett replied as he struggled to stretch a hoody over his aching body.

As the steam rose from the boiling water being poured into a tea cup, the coach, with his back to Jarrett, let out a modest laugh, “You almost had him.” A fake chuckle escaped Jarrett’s lips as he said aloud, “He was strong.” Jarrett’s eyes suddenly glazed over as he contemplated what had actually happened. The coach now noisily stirring his tea responded “we’ll go over some of the mistakes you made at training tomorrow…” There was no answer. When the coach turned around Jarrett had gone.

The cold night rain somewhat eased the discomfort of his swollen face. He lightly jogged across the road on his way to Queens Park Station. Upon entering, he was blinded by the station’s bright lights. Jarrett instinctively shut his eyes which only resulted in pain from the swelling. He wondered how bad his face looked, and briskly walked to the end carriage hoping no one else would be there.

As he neared the end of the platform he heard the slamming of a door which connected the two carriages. Through the window he could see the back of someone’s head who was sitting down. Standing at the interconnecting doors was a young man wearing black with his hood up. Jarrett continued to walk to the very end of the carriage and got onto the train and took a seat.

He tried to look at his swollen face in the reflection in front of him.

It wasn’t that bad.

The train doors closed and the train slowly began to pull away from the shelter of the platform and into the rain

⇨ Next

⇦ Back

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